Practical performance of a small PTC solar heating system in winter

Abstract

The active solar house-heating in winter is a novel technology that is eco-friendly and economical. The performance of a small solar heating system composed of parabolic trough collector (PTC) and ventilation pipelines has been experimentally investigated in the current study. With an automatic solar-tracking device, the system adopted a PTC device of aperture area 2.407 m2. The air stream was heated in the tube collector and then driven into the test room. By examining the heat gain of the air stream passing through the PTC as well as the temperature distribution of the indoor air, the working characteristic of the solar-heating system in winter was evaluated practically. The experimental results showed that for the generally-insulated room that was located in 39.87°N latitude, the daily solar heating time reached to 6–7 h, and the thermal efficiency of the PTC device was above 60%. Supposing the heat loss is reduced effectively along the outdoor pipelines in the future, such active solar heating system will be a promising heating technology in regions that are not far north on the earth.